Rating: 
Summary: A historical novel that teases the reader...
Review: Los Alamos is a good first entry for the author that, I believe, is more enjoyable if the reader has decent knowledge about the hysteria and secrecy that surrounded the Manhattan Project and its workers. Portraits of Oppenheimer, Teller and other scientists are painted against a murder myster that is slighty above average. What makes this book stand out is the detail that is given the setting and background in this novel. A good book for the summer, not a classic; however, a very promising beginning
Rating: 
Summary: Predictable. Almost Silly!
Review: Totally predictable. Thin plot. A giant waste of time and money. If you want a thriller avoid this book, if you want a love story surely there must be better ones out there
Rating: 
Summary: close, but no cigar
Review: I really wanted to love this book. At times I DID love this book. But like so many books today it's 100 pages too long. Which precludes it from delivering the promised thrills. I did like the characters and the setting a lot. Some of the writing is very evocative. But in terms of the mystery, when fictional characters intermingle with real-life people, it is not hard to figure out who done what. I am a fairly fast reader and this book took forever to finish
Rating:
Summary: A Book with One Big Flaw
Review: Los Alamos makes you feel the wind in the desert, and makes you feel it in 1945. There is a sense of weariness, of a long war winding down to a victory already made morally ambiguous by the activities on the Hill. The tenacity of the hero tracking down one murderer in the mushroom shadow of mass destruction is reminiscent of "Night of the Generals". Creating fictional characters for historical figures is rarely convincing; here, they are. The plot twists are well done, even when murder turns to espionage, the story holds up. Only one flaw, but it turns a memorable book into...above average. The hero's relationship with Emma. Emma herself. The lengthy, well-written sex scenes and stirrings of true love in the hero's breast, the psuedo-cryptic dialogue between the two, and the truly unbelievable end to the romance. It's sort of like trying to combine "The Maltese Falcon" and "Bridges of Madison County". I hope Mr. Kanon
takes us to another time and place, leaving some unnecessary baggage behind.
Rating:
Summary: Talented writer and negative stereotypes
Review: There is no denying that Joseph Kanon is a talented writer. But it should be noted that there is an undercurrent of homophobia running through his first novel, "Los Alamos". For instance, on page 135 of the first edition, in a supposedly humerous exchange, one of Kanon's characters contends that the only good 'fruit' is a dead 'fruit'. And the book abounds with gratuitous, derogatory references to 'queers'. "Los Alamos" encourages negative attitudes toward gays. Those who are uncomfortable with that would do well to skip the book. Those who don't find that off-putting will probably consider "Los Alamos" a good read
Rating: 
Summary: A solid mystery-thiller with the true flavor of "The Hill"
Review: I found "Los Alamos" to be a solid mystery-thriller packaged in good writing and logic. This is a thriller without rampaging serial-killers or enraged jealous nut cases or out of synch lawyers. This is a good book with solid writing, strong characters, intelligent reasoning,
historical insight, and just plain good fun.
I was fortunate in that I was able to bring my time spent in Los Alamos, in the early fifties, along with me when I read this book. I have seen this country, known some of these people and experienced some of the things that occurred in the book...one of the great loves of my life began in Los Alamos and my oldest friend is from that time. A nice book, a book with some meat along with the story. A book that I was able to bring something to...enjoy it!
Rating:
Summary: Los Alamos is Not a Bomb
Review: Kanon's genius is his ability to make the reader accept that events and conversations happened just as they appear on the page. His characterizations of Oppenheimer and Groves are especially believable. One has to be careful not to take these "fictions" as reality, as they are so convincingly presented. There is some unevenness in the fictional characters in that they can seem manufactured to fit the story line. But the real life participants, like the scientists, exude a genuineness that is remarkable. Connolly, the hero, and his affair with Emma, the straying wife of one of the scientists, often have a contrived aspect about them. Their presense is needed to flow the story line of the murder mystery, but can at times seem interruptive to the "real" happenings. When Connolly enlists Emma to set the final trap for the cuprits, Kanon's dialog again captures the tone of a real life situation. The resolution of the crime is reminiscent of a movie scenario where the bad guy explains to the hero the justification of the bad deeds before the hero is liquidated. That shortcoming is minor against the background of what was one of the world's major historic events
Rating:
Summary: Tickling the dragon
Review: One would never know it by the title of this book, but it is, in fact, a murder mystery. The title gives away the fact that this isn't just ANY murder mystery. It takes place during the days of the Manhattan Project. A security guard is murdered, and an outsider is "brought in" to discern the situation.The big twist is that Army intelligence does not care so much who murdered the guard. Rather, the $60,000 question is WHY he was whacked. Was he simply mugged, as it would appear? Or did it have something to do with the security of the project? That's what the protagonist, Connolly, is there to find out. And fast! The plot of the book takes a backseat to the historical setting. Kanon does a wonderful job of interweaving the goings-on of Los Alamos. The fictional character of Connolly interacts wonderfully with figures such as General Leslie Groves and the famous physicists involved in the Top-Secret Project. Legendary names such as Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman and a few others enter into the pages of the story. This book that is highly recommended to anyone who is even vaguely interested in the Manhattan Project - whether they like "murder mysteries" or not. The ethics of making & using the bomb, the political polemics of Communism, the almost paranoia for secrecy @ Los Alamos & brief glimpses of the "gadget's" scientists are all enclosed within this book. Although the story is fiction, I can't imagine Los Alamos during the mid-1940s being much different than the way in which Kanon describes it in his novel. I can think of no greater compliment to give a work of historical fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Great promise, poor execution
Review: Kanon's novel promises a lot: A murder mystery set in World War II Los Alamos. Spies, the making of the first atomic bomb, and fascinating historical characters combine to make this potentially one of the great mystery/ suspense novels. Alas, it is not. The book collapses into implausibility and irrelevance.
On the subject of implausibility -- hopefully not giving away much of the (weak) plot -- the hero Mike Connolly just happens to meet by coincidence every key figure in the plot early on in the book. This is a hard pill to swallow when one figures that several thousand people worked at Los Alamos. Coincidence happens -- but not over and over and over again.
On the question of irrelevance, one assumes that the book is building up to a dramatic conclusion involving spy rings, national security, and villains of consequence. It's not. It's building up to a sordid little scandal -- unworthy of the setting and the promise of the book. In the words of the old song, "Is that all there is?"
Just to see if Kanon is improving, I took a look at his newer Book, "The Good German." He's hasn't: same weak reliance on coincidence and chance. Don't waste your time reading "Los Alamos" or "The Good German."
Rating:
Summary: Not as grand a mystery as the title would suggest
Review: I read this book because I was always fascinated by the Manhatten Project. I went in with the impression that a grand scheme to kill the project would be uncoverd and that the government had covered it up (See "Snow Wolf" if that is what you are looking for). Los Alamos is certainly not that. While the character development is good and plenty of work goes into determining who done it, I found that this book seemed to drag and in the end was disappointed and let down with who did it and why.
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